Fear and Loathing
by LexLuthor13
Summary: Six days ago, the Joker escaped from Arkham Asylum and sought freedom in Metropolis. But an average extradition turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse, while Lex Luthor waits in the wings.
1. Passage

**Metropolis.**

The City of Tomorrow.

It is very different from Gotham and for that reason alone I try to stay away. Today, however, is different. I'm back in Metropolis—against my wishes—because I'm on a manhunt.

Four days ago, during a riot at Arkham Asylum, the Joker slipped away unnoticed. In league with The Riddler and the Scarecrow, Joker engineered a riot and ensured no one was getting into Arkham without exceeding difficulty. They killed all or most of the guards inside, let loose the Maximum Security inmates, and blew every bridge that led from the island to the rest of Gotham. It took the combined efforts of Robin, myself, Harvey Bullock and Jim Gordon to take control.

When it was over, the Asylum was secure and the instigators were sent to Blackgate until the bridges could be repaired. Mayor Krol tells me they'll be back up by the end of the month, and the inmates will be in reinforced cells.

All of them except the Joker.

I've come to the City of Tomorrow tracking a madman, and I've brought Tim along to assist.

There aren't many reasons for Batman to be in this city, but Bruce Wayne can pretend to look interested in new markets. And curry favor, for however brief a time I'll be here, with the resident philanthropist.

Luthor can lead me to Joker. I'll make certain of that.

* * *

**Downtown.**

LexCorp International is the official title of a massive firm, its fingers in countless technological and political pies across the country. It's also the weekday occupation of its eponymous founder, one Alexander Joseph Luthor, himself solely responsible for its birth and genesis into a consistent Fortune 500 ranking. In the course of fourteen years, Luthor brought his company up from nothing—from the top floor of the Daily Planet building to its own building in the heart of Metropolis.

From nothing to something.

And what a something it is.

The LexCorp Tower itself is a glittering monolith, the highest (or so the tour guides say) skyscraper in all of downtown Metropolis. Its façade appears as sheer glass and metal, and a bird's eye view suggests the building's spire is nothing more than a slanted capital letter L. Indeed, the entire building follows the L shape, from the slanted highest point down to an indiscriminate loading dock on the building's rear. Of course, only the best and shiniest and most inspiring parts of the tower are visible, either by plane or by passers-by.

Its very existence is a message to Metropolis.

_Welcome to Lex Luthor's City of Tomorrow._

The 97th floor is the topmost. It's occupied almost totally by Luthor's office, as well as a small corridor that leads out of his office, past his secretary's desk, to a single bronze-paneled elevator.

A smaller part of the floor—accessible only from inside Luthor's office, one that doesn't show up on schematics—is for his private use.

His office is colored in muted, darkened tones: Deep purple carpeting and twin leather chairs, colored rich faux green, are at angles in front of a wide oak desk.

Luthor sits slouched behind that desk, using one hand to sweep through the morning crossword. His other hand wraps itself around the stem of a wine glass and raises it every few minutes, tasting the Merlot.

A Bose stereo across the office belts out the Habanera from _Carmen_. A meter away, a flat-panel television plays the WGBS evening news on mute.

Luthor's laptop automatically scrolls through the Daily Planet's RSS feed.

In the middle of his Merlot, his phone rings. Slender, tapered, hands slip away from the laptop, grasp the phone lightly and raise it to his ear.

"What is it, Eve?"

"Bruce Wayne is on line three, sir. Should I put him through?"

Luthor smiles thinly. "Yes."

Teschmacher complies. The other end of the line hisses as she transfers the call. Luthor cradles the phone between his ear and his shoulder and opens his email client. The line hisses again. Luthor composes his message to Tech Support on the fortieth floor and asks them to check network connections from the fortieth on up.

Wayne bursts in with an annoying baritone.

"Hello, Lex! How are you?"

Luthor shuddered and held the phone an inch away from his ear.

"I'm fine Bruce."

"Glad to hear it, very glad."

Luthor cradles the phone again and began scrolling through his email. "May I ask," he says to Wayne "why you're calling me at this hour?" He drafts a message to Lois Lane at the Planet with succinct times for a dinner date the following day. He doesn't craft it as a question.

"Well," Wayne says and coughs loudly. "I was in the tub the other day when I had an epiphany—"

"That must've hurt."

"What? Anyway, I figured I haven't been to your city in…well, who knows how long, and I wanted to pay the old girl a visit. See how things are treating her and how they're treating you, catch my drift?"

"Yes," Luthor says. "Same old city. Same old problems."

"That bad, huh?"

"I'll spare you the details, Bruce." The email to Lois bounces back with her monosyllabic reply: _yes_. Luthor smiles. "When are you flying in?"

"Oh I'm already here."

Luthor's eyebrows angle as he considers his options._ Rich this idle...he deserves to be played_. "Are you free for lunch tomorrow? I'll send Mercy for you at 11:30. Where are you staying?"

"That'll be fine, Lex. And I'm at the Halldorf."

"Wonderful. See you then."

Wayne disconnects first. Luthor dials his secretary.

"Eve. Lunch tomorrow for two. Something exotic. The Thai place on Broadway, if it's still in business."

"Yes, Mister Luthor."

Luthor disconnects unceremoniously and drafts another email to Lois, thanking her and asking her where she wished to dine.

* * *

**The Halldorf Hotel.**

Tim Drake sat in the center of the parlor, cross-legged (though he really wanted to call it Indian-style), naked except for his shorts. Deep meditation: the name of the game. Complete relaxation or so he's told and utter readiness.

It served a purpose. The parlor is the centrality of the room; the door to the hallway is only a meter away. It's highly unlikely that anybody would, but should somebody decide to break in…well, he'd be ready.

Or paranoid.

Tim's eyes opened slowly and he allowed himself a sigh.

"You need to concentrate, Tim," he said quietly and wiped a hand across his brow, taking a layer of sweat with it.

"Agreed."

Bruce Wayne stood on the far side of the parlor, nursing a club soda and leaning against the wall, next to the wet-bar. His hair hung loose in his face, his glasses almost dangling from his nose. He smiled, but only a little.

"But," he said and took a drink. "You're getting better."

"Thanks," Tim said and stood. He threw a towel over his shoulder and went to the window. It was almost midnight, and Metropolis was still aglow with the glow and hum of life. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"I hate that expression," Wayne said. He pulled off his tweed jacket and threw it over a wingback chair, rolled up the sleeves on his Oxford. "What's on your mind?"

Tim frowned, looked out the window a moment longer, and then turned back to Wayne.

"How sure are you that he's even here?"

"Quite," Wayne says and finishes off the club soda. "I know him well enough, Tim, I can assure you of that."

"And what about Luthor?"

Wayne lowered his glasses even more and smiled discreetly. "If I want to get inside Luthor's head, it means lowering his defenses with a damn good impression of myself."

"And what does a billionaire like Lex think?"

"That people are predictable," Wayne said pointedly. "I intend to call his bluff."

* * *

_**Continued...**_  



	2. Incite

**Metropolis.**

**Midday.**

The restaurant was subdued tones of blue and silver and grey—a perfect match for the burgeoning storm clouds Luthor could see from his table. The best view in the entire restaurant consisted of a bird's eye perception of the Hob's River and, further out, the Atlantic.

Luthor had arrived at 11am, an hour before his meeting with Wayne. IN the interim, he made his way through the Financial Times and the National Review. At 11:30, Morgan Edge called his cellular begging to stave off another buyout. Luthor played along good-humoredly and let Edge have his way. He put in a call to his broker next and mentioned stepping down as CEO. A few minutes after that, he noticed on his Blackberry that LexCorp stock had already dipped five percent.

It was mild amusement. A paltry if entertaining way to pass the time.

A gaunt waitress, her hair tied in a Puritanical bun, brought him the wine list. He selected a '43 Shiraz and sent her away and reclined in his chair—a surprisingly comfortable red leather number. For the next fifteen minutes, over two glasses of wine, he watched the passers-by.

Watched an ex-employee go into the flower shop across the street and come out with an oversized bouquet. This prompted him to call the shop and have a single rose sent to Lois Lane's apartment. "One is more profound than twelve," he'd said.

At 11:50, the maitre d' brought him the Daily Planet. He perused the cover story—the usual muck about Superman saving a pregnant teenage welfare-recipient from a house fire in Suicide Slum--and made a mental note to harangue Perry about it over drinks that night.

At noon precisely, Bruce Wayne came striding across the restaurant's main transept, wearing a loose fitting black blazer and matching trousers; loafers with matching silver buckles, and a white oxford he left unbuttoned midway up the sternum. Wayne wore silver eyeglasses, lightly shaded cobalt, as was the style.

As ever, he carried himself with a superior kind of indifference. _Look at me, I'm important but I'm also a slob_.

Luthor tightened his tie and stood, grasping Wayne's hand and shaking it vigorously.

"I trust your ride down went alright?"

"Super, Lex," Wayne smiled. "Just super. Hell of a driver you got there." He pointed a hitchhiker's thumb over one shoulder, aimed vaguely at Mercy—herself standing motionless near the dining room's entrance.

"Good," Luthor replied. He poured out a second glass of Shiraz and offered the bottle to Wayne. Wayne waved his hand politely. When the gaunt waitress came again Wayne asked for a club soda.

Luthor smiled and sipped the Shiraz.

Wayne gave his order: a thin slice of the lamb, well-minced with the smallest of jelly on the side. Caesar salad and goat cheese.

"And for you?" she asked, turning to Luthor.

"New York strip. Well done, with a potato and Caesar likewise. Light vinaigrette."

She nodded and took the leather-bound menus away. Luthor watched her go and sipped his Shiraz. Wayne did the same and did it as a voyeur, lowering his glasses and staring over the rims as she slid into the kitchen.

When he turned back to Luthor, the Metropolis mogul was seated perfectly erect, his hands clasped in front of him. His expression was blank. Awaiting whatever it was Wayne had to say.

"Thank you for having me," Wayne said modestly.

"My pleasure," Luthor said and scratched his face. "Though, I must ask why you're here—"

"We've been over this," Wayne said and cocked his head.

"Yes, I know, Luthor said impatiently. "But I want to cement this. I suspect you're here to branch out. Wayne Enterprises is experiencing a bit of slump, am I right? By the looks of it, I'd say you've given up on going into work when there aren't any contracts to sign or floosies to woo or stooges to golf with. Stop me if you've heard it."

"You don't think much of me, do you, Lex?" Wayne smiled and rested his head on one arm like a wide-eyed child.

"Oh no," Luthor said. His eyes darted to the kitchen. The waitress was coming through the door again, carrying two plates and having relative difficulty with them. He want back to Wayne. "I think the world of you. As a matter of fact that's the reason I asked you here for lunch. I suspect you'll want to get in on what my tech labs are doing right now."

The waitress laid down Luthor's strip and sprinkled pepper over his Caesar without being told. Did the same to Wayne's, and refreshed his club soda. Luthor cut into his salad and waited for her to go. When she slid back into the kitchen, he switched back on.

"I've started up an organic technologies wing. Our first project is a synthesized form of Kryptonite."

"But…haven't you had that for years?"

"You're quite right, Bruce. Much like gasoline—or, if you prefer the microeconomical, street drugs—whatever private sectors make represents a sliver of potential. Even one of my labs isn't large enough for the production scale we'd need. And given the eclectic nature of the alien's arrival, that's saying something. Had he not arrived, I'm almost sorry to say it wouldn't have spurred industry and science such as it has."

"The price we pay for the problems of super-people," Wayne said glibly and sipped his club soda. "Only what do you intend to do with it? Halloween costumes for the accident-prone?"

"Hardly," Luthor reproved. "It's no water-powered-car myth, but Kryptonite has amazing properties. I expect other minerals of his home world are similar. When my labs were first able to synthesize Kryptonite several years ago, we only managed to get it in trace amounts—no bigger than, say, one of your knuckles. Enough to pass it off as cheap jewelry. A bonus of our research was the discovery that its radioactive."

"And what does that hold for your stock offerings?" Wayne was half-done with his salad.

"Hard to see, at this point. But you understand my position."

"I do," Wayne said emphatically and finished off his club soda. "You're at the ledge of progress, is that it? Ready to jump off or jump back."

"Correct," Luthor nodded. "We're on the verge of something big here, and I'm quite interested in seeing it play out. You're not here because you want in on my Kryptonite venture—I suspect Bruce Wayne has little interest in an alien mineral—"

"One could ask the same for you. What does Lex Luthor get from a Kryptonite factory?" Behind the glasses, Wayne's eyes narrowed.

Luthor smiled and reclined in his seat. Tapped the table playfully. "Never afraid to ask me questions—I've always admired that about you."

"I get that a lot."

Luthor's eyes locked on Wayne, pleased. "You must."

* * *

**Later.**

**The Halldorf Hotel.**

Wayne was in the middle of pushup number seventy-five when Tim Drake came in, bedecked in the familiar accoutrements of the worst kind of tourist. Wayne stopped the exercise and lay back lazily on the Persian rug.

"I give you the cards and this is what you do with your day?"

"What else is there to do? You told me not to go out—'lest I attract Clark'—and meditating has lost its flavor."

"Then you're missing the point. What would Shiva say?"

"Probably that I'm doing it wrong and that she'll break my legs for it."

Wayne shrugs. _Boy's got a point._

"Find out anything about our elusive Mister Luthor?" Tim asked and began to change into another pair of denims and a dark green oxford. Wayne went to the bathroom and splashed water in his face.

"Only that he's hiding something."

"Oh?"

"He went into a long speech about factory-wide synthetic kryptonite production. It was his way of starting conversation. Thinks I'm one of his damn Board Members."

Tim snickered. "Did you bring up Joker, or is that more of a second-date thing?"

Wayne grunted minimally. "He thinks I want a piece of riverfront real estate for 'WayneTech Metropolis.' Probably thinks he'll buy me out in a few more years."

"Y'know, I always wondered who had more money."

"It varies. His stock dipped this morning on a tip that he was stepping down. So...me. For the moment."

"Neat," Tim lied. "Does this mean we don't get to fire Alfred?"

"He's lying," Wayne disregards. "He leaves that office and he won't have a life. He could go underground, but his money would dry up quickly. His obsessions would drive him mad."

Tim tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I know a guy like that."

Wayne turned off the water and went back to the parlor. Tim was laying with his eyes closed in the chaise-lounge.

"Wrong," Wayne said. "Lex Luthor's insane."

Behind closed eyes, Tim chuckled. "There but for the grace of Rogaine go you."

Wayne smiled. "I ordered dinner while you were gone."

"Great, what are we having?"

A knock came at the door, a swift three-note staccato.

"Thai," Wayne said. That should be it now."

He walked swiftly toward the door and threw it open. Ready to sign a ledger of receipt, only…

No room service. Not even a teenager with a glandular problem and bad social mores.

Just a Man of Steel, hovering a foot in the air, arms folded over the shining red and yellow diamond on his chest. Wearing an expression of concern and as much resentment as possible.

"Oh," Wayne heard himself say. "Hi."

* * *

_**Continued... **_


	3. Bad Guys

**Metropolis.**

**Dusk.**

Luthor sat in the back of a custom-built limousine. A '97 Lincoln with all the accoutrements of a presidential arcade: positive-grip tires reinforced with Kevlar and petroleum jelly.

Tempered glass windows. Were they subject to a gunshot, the glass wouldn't even shatter.

It's the kind of car a CEO doesn't drive. A wolf carefully masked as a sheep.

In the furthest seat back, Luthor stared out the window. Metropolis at dusk was a vast panoply of oranges and reds—the sunlight reflected off every bright surface in a three-mile radius. From the other side of the windows, Luthor watched the populace go to and for about their affairs, and thought ironically about Welles' passage.

Blissfully unaware that they were being watched and observed…by intelligences greater than their own.

He scoffed quietly. Plucked his cellular out of his jacket pocket and dialed Lois Lane at the _Daily Planet_.

He was bounced through three subordinates before he finally got to the newsroom. A woman's voice, harsh and impatient, answered.

"Lois Lane?" Luthor threw a bit of inflection at the end, to make it sound like a question.

"Lex Luthor."

"The one and only, Miss Lane. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No," she said. "Just getting ready to check out for the night. You?"

"On my way to an engagement. I know we made plans for dinner, and I have to say I'm regrettably cancelling those."

"Oh," Lois said, deflated. "Well. That's…unfortunate."

"We'll catch up some other time," Luthor said and hung up.

* * *

**The Halldorf Hotel.**

"Well," Wayne said, turning away from the door, "do you want to come in or are you just going to stand there all night?"

Superman didn't move.

"Or hover," Wayne corrected himself. "As the case may be."

Superman lowered to the floor and walked into the room as a normal human would. His cape, draped back behind his shoulders, fluttered with the movement of his body. Tim Drake sat up in the chaise-lounge and gave a casual "hey-o" and a wave. The Man of Steel nodded back militarily and stopped in the center of the room.

Wayne offered him a tumbler of club soda.

"No thanks," he said.

"Fine," Wayne replied and downed it himself. "Must say, I'm not surprised. Though I wish you would've stayed out. Is it too much to ask for you to leave now?"

"Yes," Superman said. "You're here. That means one thing. One of your psychos is loose in my city."

"**The** psycho," Wayne says. He turns to face the Man of Steel and leans against the bay window sill. "Joker. And if you're interested enough to come see me at this point, you may be interested enough to know he's got Luthor wrapped around his little finger."

"Not vice versa?"

"Not even close," Wayne says and refills the tumbler. "Luthor's being played and I'm sure he knows it."

"What does Luthor have that Joker wants? The tactile pleasure of robbing the richest man in the world?"

"No," Wayne says distantly. "Joker hasn't contacted Lex and that has him scared. I could sense it. You know as well as I do that Lex prides himself on control, and when he loses it he falls back on his old tricks. He'll pour himself into his work and focus his hatred on you until he's rid himself of Joker." The irony wasn't lost on Wayne.

"You're so sure." Superman's voice is firm.

"Luthor's a rich man with power issues. I know the type."

"And you're keeping me out of the loop on purpose—any reason, aside from your usual hubris?"

Wayne stood from the window sill, his eyebrows angled mildly. He scoffed and said, "It's only hubris if I fail."

Superman inhales. Holds it. Lets it go.

"What do you need, Bruce?"

"To continue my investigation unabated. For you to distract Luthor well enough that when I make my move, he doesn't put on his armor and make our jobs harder."

"And this big move of yours?"

"There are only so many places the Joker could be. I'll start from the outside and work my way in."

"I could find him myself, you know. Just tell me where to look."

"No," Wayne jabbed. "My investigation. My criminal. I take him back. By the end of the week, you and Luthor can go back to acting out King Lear, and I won't call again until I need something. Fair?"

"Fair," Superman said and met Wayne's handshake.

* * *

** Suicide Slum.**

"Ya know, this really isn't what I was looking for. I was in the market for a nice Dutch colonial. Sky-blue siding and a nice walk-up. Big backyard where the kids could play."

"Sheesh, clown. You give me a bad name."

"Oh I excel at that. But thanks for your concern, dad."

"Bite me."

"Nah, you'd like it."

Oswald Loomis' mustache curled into a sneer. A meter away from him, the Joker sat in the bamboo frame of a papasan chair and thumbed idly through the morning edition of _NewsTime._

"I really think I wouldn't," Loomis said.

"Hey, your loss. I can't be blamed if you don't like the way I do my hair."

Loomis cocked his head and made delightful faux-sardonic notes in his head. _The Joker, yessireebob: not only certifiable but, to boot, state-bonded_. He rolled his eyes.

"And anyway, your end of the deal ain't complete yet, Pranky. I needs my technology and a certain little bald birdie tells me the buck stops here. Or—" Joker lowered the paper and pointed at a grease-stain across the garage. "—maybe there. Savvy?"

On the verge of saying something, Loomis was interrupted by the corrugated metal door across the room: sliding up with mechanical rhythm and annoyance. In the starlit darkness, there were three figures.

Two rather butch-looking chauffeurs—a busty blonde number and a buxom African type. One of Loomis' eyebrows arched and he entertained the brief resemblance he must hold with the old horny wolf from the Droopy cartoons.

And in the center, looking deathly humorless. Clad in drab grey trousers, black boots, and a double-breasted lab jacket distinctly reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein…

Luthor.

"Well, well," Loomis said. "Surprise, I admit."

"They're here," Luthor said harshly. "And you're out of time. Get out of my warehouse, clown. Our partnership is over."

"What?" Joker asked and rose slowly from the papasan. "You're kicking us out?"

"Yes."

Jokers' face darkened.

"You…you brain-dead cephalopod! You take me into your custody, I accept your gracious hospitality with aplomb and now you just throw me out?! You're a bastard, Lex! I hope you get **cancer**!"

The busty blonde pulls a gun and fires it only once. The bullet hits spot-on, going straight through the right side of Joker's ribcage. Not the heart, but close enough. A foot away, Loomis is shocked into immobility.

Joker falls to the ground, and Loomis sees the crushing accuracy of the sack of bricks sleight.

He looked over the fading corpus, twisted his mustache, and said, "Huh. Neat."

The chauffeurs picked Joker up by the shoulders and dragged him to Luthor. The tips of his shoes scuffed the floor. When he was close enough, Luthor touched a gloved hand to Joker's chin and raised his head to see him. Eye-to-eye.

"No one insults me clown. No one."

Before leaving Luthor turned back to Loomis with an out of place, wizened smile.

"The money has been deposited, Oswald. Thank you for helping."

The chauffeurs popped the trunk and threw Joker in haphazardly. They strolled to the front of the car and got in like nothing had happened. Luthor slid in the back door by the wheel-well, and a moment later, the car was gone. A fading black spot on a fading horizon.

Loomis stood there for another hour, tracing the pattern of his own erratic breathing. And finally said, "You're welcome."

* * *

_**Continued... **_


	4. Punishment

**Metropolis.**

**The LexCorp Tower.**

"Do you ever regret it?"

"Regret what?" he asked.

"Spending all your time going after Superman. When you could be doing…better things."

"Better things?" Luthor turned away from the window and swirled the Brandy snifter in the cradle of his hand. His eyes were dark and narrow. "My dear boy. What in the world could possibly compare with saving my people from Superman?"

"Your…people?"  
"This city is mine. These people are mine. He comes in and steals them from me. Well…I don't go down that easily. And I refuse to let him his victory without struggle. You understand my position, I'm sure."

"Sure. Jealousy."

"Not anymore," he said swiftly. "Vengeful."

_One and the same_, the boy thought, and said, "You seem so sure of things."

"I always am," Luthor said lightly. "Nothing surprises me anymore. Least of all the cringing misgivings of an alien with a god complex."

"But isn't he a god? I mean…he can bend steel in his bare hands. That's got to count for something."

"And humans have perfected machinery to do the same, my dear boy. Everything that exists on this world is the intellectual property of our collective conscience. We owe our lives to science, and science lends itself to us. Alien technology and mystic fairytales and religious fervor have no place in the laboratory of ideas."

"Sounds counterintuitive."

Luthor rolled his eyes. "You're not seeing the big picture."

Five minutes passed before the boy spoke again.

"Why do you still do it? You could cure cancer, or take us all to some parallel dimension. Superman's a cockroach. You kill him and he comes back. Why bother?"

"True," Luthor said and nodded. "But that's what separates us, isn't it? From the moment he and his kind arrived, men lost the will to succeed—the will to explore. They stopped seeking the stars when Superman brought the stars home."

"Complacency."

"Precisely," Luthor said. He smiled and felt calmly vindicated that the boy understood. He sipped the Brandy again. "So what brings you here? Another errand for an uncompromising and ungrateful master?"

The boy hesitated for a moment. A gloved hand stroked his chin. "Batman…understands."

Luthor sat on the edge of his desk. Gave a kindly and sympathetic smile. And remembered Welles' line again. _Intelligences…greater than their own…_

"Does he now? Do you?"

Behind the star-lite lenses of his domino mask, Robin's eyes locked on Luthor's convincing emeralds.

"Yes," the Boy Wonder said. "You don't respond well to threats. That's why he sent me. I'm willing to press your buttons, and you think just enough of me to listen."

Luthor scoffed. "What a lovely gopher he's got himself now. And yet you don't seem anything like him, aside from some grudge to piss off certain people—a trait I'd say you picked up in middle school. Tell me: you got picked on in your early teens and you dove into your studies as solace; the byproduct was that you gave a cheerful boyish veneer over to typical angst, only you never had an object on which to exact your hatred. A father, perhaps?"

Luthor listened.

"This is irrelevant, Lex," The Boy Wonder said irritably. "I've told you what he wants. Your guarantee you won't get in the way."

"So you've said," Luthor said darkly, downing the Brandy. "Does Batman think he can keep me out of the game simply by wishing it so? By sending his errand-boy to ask favors of me?"

"Enough," Robin's voice was mechanical distance. He'd been well-trained in the arts of seeking out and stifling snakes in the grass. Despite the hyperbole, Robin had enough of a suspicion to believe Luthor was an anaconda.

Luthor went to his desk and wrote what Robin perceived to be an address on a small note card, and handed it to the Boy Wonder.

"What's this?" Robin's eyes locked on Luthor.

"An answer."

"Why?"

Luthor smiled and finished off the Brandy. Leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

"Tell me," he said. "Does it comfort you at all knowing that you're wasting time with me while Batman's out there doing the grunt work?"

Robin clenched his jaw and made his hands into fists. _God damn this Luthor._

"Until then," Luthor said, "that information is yours, to use on your own accord. Consider it my word."

Robin locked his gaze on Luthor's piercing emerald eyes and shook Luthor's hand loosely. A moment later he was out the window, diving toward the street.

Luthor watched him go and stared into the night for a while thereafter. His jaw tightened when he thought about someone like the Boy Wonder—a young mind, full of mush as the expression went, and yet capable of so much more—working with someone like the Alien.

He scowled and tightened his grip on the brandy snifter. The tendons in his hand stood out against whitened skin.

The brandy snifter shattered in his hand.

* * *

**Later**. 

The Boy Wonder sat perched on a granite parapet on the roof of the Daily Planet building. The night air was clear and brisk and his cape fluttered noiselessly. Behind him, the oversized globe gave a dull hum as it rotated on antiquated gears. Every few seconds the metal base screeched a high soprano as it grated across an opposing steel plate.

He let the cold air wash across his face, and strangely felt a sweatdrop of nervousness course down his forehead.

_Maybe he's right…_

Lex had made a spot-on analysis in about five seconds, and Tim had only narrowly dodged a bullet meant to derail the conversation and utterly confound his thought process.

Luthor was schooled in Logic. He knew his way around people and around ideas. Knew how to make everything go his way. And reveled in the ability to make other people aware of his brilliance.

The Boy Wonder sighed and clenched his jaw.

_I got had by a forty-year-old bald guy and I didn't even see it coming. Rank amateur, Tim. Idiot._

_Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing here…_

Robin felt a tiny buzz in his head and tapped his ear, opening a channel on the earpiece communicator.

"How did it go?" the familiar voice of Batman asked

Robin sighed, and looked out past the cityscape. A half-mile away, the LexCorp tower off a single spot of light from the top floor. _He's looking at you, Tim. And you at him. Quid pro quo._ "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fine," Batman dismissed. "We're checking out a lead at STAR Labs. A few nights ago, a prototype bomb went missing. Superman thinks it was the Prankster.

Robin sneered. "All these weirdos have to have names?"

"Says the man who fights a guy called 'Killer Moth.'"

"Alright," Robin replies thickly. "What do you want me to do?"

"Keep on Luthor. If he so much as picks his nose, I want to know."

"Yeah. Okay."

He stood slowly and let the wind wrap the cape around his body.

_He's looking at you._

_And you're letting him get to you._

He dove off the building, flinging a grapple at the nearest ledge.

* * *

**LexCorp.**

Luthor left his office three minutes after Robin had gone. He left the lights on—he could afford the bills—and took a service elevator to the sub-basement. On the way down, with a Muzak version of Rachmaninoff playing behind bronze paneled speakers, Luthor positioned a 9mm Beretta in a leather shoulder holster and dressed himself down.

Took off the two-thousand dollar jacket and threw it carelessly to the floor. Loosened his tie and let it fall, equally heedless, on top of the jacket. Slid his cufflinks off and filed them in one pocket. He kept the three thousand dollar Citizen watch.

Rolled his sleeves up to just below his elbows, and cracked his knuckles.

The elevator slowed and dinged open after a pause.

Luthor took a cleansing breathe and stepped out. Ahead of him, a single shaft of fluorescence shone down on a wooden chair and the slack body chained to it.

The Joker.

His head hung, half-dead, and slowly rolled from side to side. Blood was smeared across his chin; successive lines went up either cheek from the corners of the lip to the bottom of the ear. When he saw Luthor, he started cackling and spit out a tooth.

The incisor bounced harmlessly off Luthor's alligator loafers. The Metropolis mogul looked at the tooth, at rest an inch from his foot, and back at Joker.

"How are you on your Roman History, clown? Julius Caesar? Gladiators?"

"That…Crowe movie?" Joker murmured. "He hit the emperor with a phone, didn't he?"

Luthor pulled a set of brass knuckles from one pocket and gave Joker an abrupt right cross.

More blood.

Joker gave a greedy cackle and swallowed blood and huffed air. His right eye was swollen shut, a prominent purple bruise misshaping half his face.

"Where is the weapon?" Luthor asked and clenched his jaw.

Joker cackled again, a guttural and wet effect. "What…what weapon?"

Luthor backhanded Joker with the knuckles. Waited for a reaction, and then kicked the chair back. Joker fell to the ground with a dull thud and threw up more blood. Luthor crouched over him, clutched Joker's genitals and pulled. The clown yelped.

"The Romans had something called a caestus: more or less a leather glove with studs and spikes around it. Hell of a weapon. Used expressly for the purpose of making sure the other guy got it worse. What should you get?"

"For…what?" Joker's eyes lit up.

"For that effrontery. You made me look like a fool. That was unforgivable."

Joker laughed: a string of quick huffs of air. He started pulling on his handcuffs, wondering how long it would take for the metal to snap.

"You owe me something," Luthor said. "A certain device I loaned on the good authority of Mister Loomis, and I want it back. You don't come with it—as a matter of fact, if I wasn't so sure Batman would focus on me in the event of your death, I'd kill you myself."

Joker blew him a kiss.

Luthor stood and kicked Joker across the face. Once. Twice. Spit in his face.

He kneeled again, only to pull the chair up and wrap his hands around Joker's neck and squeeze.

Luthor's eyes lit up. His jaw tightened and he smiled minimally. Delighting in the pain of others. _Remarkable…_

"Trusting you was a mistake," Luthor said quietly. "One I won't make again. You have a bomb with my name on it someplace in this city, and I want it back. If you hinder me, I will pump every bullet I can into that skull of yours until I'm one hundred percent sure you are dead. And no hand of God will bring you back from where I shall send you. Do you understand?"

Joker's unswollen eye rolled in its socket, looking sickly yellow and slightly anemic, and locked on Luthor.

"I'll rob you of having your great showdown with the Dark Knight. Either you tell me where this bomb is, or all that'll be left of the great and powerful Joker will be this…little…finger." Luthor kicked Joker onto his side and grabbed one of his index fingers. He pulled it back slowly and waited for the pop.

When it came the Joker didn't even say anything.

Luthor kicked him at the base of the spine. Pulled him up a moment later and spun the chair around to look him in the face. And started hitting.

Punch after punch. Joker's head rolled with each strike. Losing more teeth. Losing more blood. Losing what was left of his mind.

After twenty minutes of pugilism, Luthor's once-sterling white Oxford was stained utterly with the deep crimson of Joker's blood. When Luthor checked his watch for the time, he had to wipe away the blood to do so, and ended up only smearing it. The leather shoulder holster dripped blood at its lowest point, and leaked excess blood on Luthor's trousers. When he wiped the sweat from his brow, Joker's blood spread across Luthor's forehead and he felt somehow infected by it.

"You know your problem?" Joker said.

Luthor removed the brass knuckles and threw them across the room. "What?"

"You oughta calm down, Lexie. This paranoia's not doing it for you."

Luthor scowled and growled quietly. He pulled the Beretta from the holster and angled it at Joker's forehead. The gun didn't move.

Luthor monitored his own breathing for a moment and timed it to thirty-three inspirations per minute. He was, then, calm in his threats. Reserved. Honest.

Sociopathic.

"No fight to the finish with the Dark Knight. No grand finale for the world's greatest entertainer. Just a by-line in some tabloid that says the Joker's body was found chopped to bits in an alley. You don't want to go out that way."

Joker's swollen eye opened as much as it could. His vision cleared and he took a quick whiff of the barrel. "Mm," he said. "Corditey."

Luthor whipped him across the jaw with the barrel, breaking the clown's nose. He brought the gun back and pressed it against Joker's forehead.

"The weapon," Luthor requested. "Or your life."

* * *

_**Continued... **_


	5. Good Guys

**Fifth Avenue.**

**10:47 p.m.**

Metropolis at night slid by him in the window, a glowing panoply of life and light. Every store window lit up in the accoutrements of a post-Christmas, pre-Valentine's Day spending glut. He almost thought about asking Mercy to pull over so he could revel in the utter humanity of it all.

But business called. And after the Joker, anyway, he needed a bit of a reprieve.

The limousine drove past Schonenfeld's Men's Store. Luthor leaned back in the seat and touched his chin thoughtfully. The limo stopped at a red light—the intersection of Fifth and Breeding. Luthor looked forward.

"How long?"

"Five minutes."

"Good," he said and looked out the window. On the other side of the glass, an elderly couple were stopped in front of the Stacys window display. The woman, a hunched geriatric, was buried underneath a mink coat and a loose pillbox hat. The man wore a tweed walking hat—probably a relic from a childhood spent in the Old Country—and a navy peacoat. Aviator-style eyeglasses hung off a bulbous nose.

Luthor inhaled slowly. The mink bedecked woman pointed at a model Lionel train winding its way around another model of the WGBS building. The peacoat man rolled his eyes and pulled her away. Luthor pursed his lips.

The limo lurched forward, leaving Stacys behind.

He stared out the window a moment longer.

"She'll be in the middle of her nightly crossword," Luthor said from behind thin and motionless lips. "Wondering how many E's in therapeutic."

* * *

**The Halldorf Hotel.**

**10:30 p.m.**

Bruce tells me to go home after I tell him Luthor left for the night. No point in pursuit, he tells me; we don't want to drive him off. I agree, and I find the alley off Breeding Street, where I left the spare clothes satchel.

Its twenty minutes across town on main streets before I get back to the hotel. The doorman looks only so surprised to see me waltzing up the drive in jeans and a sheepskin bomber jacket—the kind with the all-too-comfortable fleece around the neckline. Even so, he does his job and lets me in, and for his troubles I give him five bucks. As I walk across the lobby, I start cataloguing. Everything.

The desk attendant looks harmless enough: a slightly older girl than me—eighteen by the looks of her—with too much makeup. The white oxford she's wearing, probably a hotel mandate, is too tight and shows off her less than ample goods for God and everyone. Her hair looks gawdy: dark brown fry-curled at the bangs and pulled back to the crown, then free hanging. Here eyebrows are nonexistent, and chapped skin shows through the ruby wax covering her lips. She's got that Cleopatra kind of eyeliner going on—so much that either she just woke up, or she should trade up on abusive boyfriends.

She puts down the Cosmo magazine when I reach the desk and smiles, showing yellow teeth. Probably smokes on her breaks. Probably took this job to satisfy her parents—and by default, probably did something to really piss them off. A maxed out credit card or three, maybe.

"Help you?" she asks and cracks her gum.

"Uh, Tim Drake in 509. I seem to have misplaced my room key. I don't suppose I could get a replacement?" It's a true enough story. I was in such a rush to get to LexCorp that I changed into my suit and left the room card on the bathroom counter. Stupid.

"Sure," she says. She turns around and roots through a filing cabinet for a minute or two. When she turns back around, she hands me a small manila envelope with 509 embossed on one side, and eases back into her seat. Her oxford struggles to stay buttoned, and for a moment I think she's going to stupid lengths just to show me whatever she thinks I'm interested in. "It's a magnetized card. I'm sure you've seen them before."

"Yeah. Thanks."

I turn to leave, and she winks at me. I let out a small puff of air that passes for amusement.

"Oh," she says. I turn around and she's holding an oblong cardboard box in one hand. "This was delivered earlier. Said it was for your eyes only."

Interesting. "Thanks."

Five minutes later I'm in 509, sitting on the ottoman at the foot of Bruce's bed. Staring at the box in my lap.

"Hmm."

It looks like anything delivered by UPS, only no address tag. Just my name scrawled on the outside and underlined twice. Way to emphasize importance. I stare at it for five minutes before rolling my eyes.

"Oh hell," I say. The sides are fold-out wings, and they open pretty easily. I pull the lid back, and there it is.

A Beretta. Jet-black, 9mm, probably a 1951 model by the grooves and barrel design. Loaded, too. A yellow post-it note is nestled in an open space between the hammer and one corner. It read in small caps "arm yourself."

Droll.

Strange. This is an Italian gun. Used by Italians, made by Italians. It's not surprising to me that it's stateside (Metropolis is a big town, and before Luthor hit it big, it was a mob town under the late Gazzo family). But there are only so many people that could get this gun straight from the manufacturer, like this nice and shiny and perfectly unfired one seems to be. It is, however, surprising to me that it was delivered to Tim Drake.

Luthor knows Robin is here. He doesn't know Tim Drake is.

So either he's baiting me for reasons unknown.

Or else he's figured it out.

Shit.

* * *

**Stryker's Island Metahuman Penitentiary.**

**4:02 a.m.**

Batman sat, slightly hunched, in a metal chair at the far end of a folding table. The room around him was typically drab—the atmosphere meant to convey some kind of futility. That whoever entered…this was their last chance at saving themselves.

At squealing.

And squeal they did.

Superman had taken Winslow Schott up to the roof and dangled him by his shoelaces. After ten surprisingly long minutes and a change of underpants, Schott caved.

Told Batman everything.

Joker had been in town for a little under a week. In that time, he'd ingratiated himself with Luthor enough to swindle the Metropolis Mogul out of a missile that had slipped through one of LexCorp's piles of military contracts. Or so Schott said. Batman couldn't be sure of the truth.

Schott made them a deal. He played stoolpigeon in exchange for consideration on his sentence, and took the World's Finest to an abandoned rathole warehouse behind the Endymion Theater in Bakerline. The previous tenant had been someone Schott referred to only by the name Teng.

The name rang enough of a bell to unnerve Superman.

He took Schott back to Stryker's and told him to burn on his deal.

At the Bakerline warehouse, Batman discovered traces of radiation. A rather sizeable trail, too—this meant it was recently moved in and even more recently moved out. For locations unknown.

That was three hours ago. Batman's been sitting in one of the Penitentiary's interrogation rooms ever since, going over the information in his mind.

Schott knew the warehouse. Knew exactly where it was. He knew there was radioactive material moved in and moved out soon thereafter, and he seemed appropriately concerned about it—not just to save his own hide, but for the same reason anyone's afraid of radiation.

In a world of super-heroes, genetic mutations aren't all they're cracked up to be—especially ones from nuclear sludge.

"That was too easy," Superman said. He was hovering a constant foot above the ground, tracing the outline of the table. To the unsuspecting eye, he was pacing.

"Yes," Batman said. "All roads lead to the same point."

"Schott knew about the warehouse and whatever was there, despite being in prison. What if Luthor got word to him in prison? You think Luthor would be that lazy?"

"He knows I'm on him," Batman said. "I suspect he's worried enough, with both Joker and I in the picture. When he figures out **you're **in the investigation, he might just lose it."

"Well, he's too smart not to suspect me. "Superman nodded compliantly. "So what do we do?"

Batman inhaled. Behind the star-lite lenses, his eyes searched the room looking for answers.

"LexCorp's contracts with Washington probably allowed some prototypes to fall through logistical holes. Hypothesize that a convoy gets conveniently left behind at a weigh-station out in the middle of nowhere. What are the chances a truck with LexCorp's logo on it gets hijacked by the Joker?"

Superman stopped hovering and landed. "You think the Joker stole whatever was stinking up that place with plutonium?"

"No," Batman said. "I think it was given to him."

* * *

**1938 Sullivan Street.**

**11:15 p.m.**

Won't she be surprised.

No need to play it up or down. Just straightforward. Ring the damn bell.

Ding dong.

Roll your eyes at the ridiculous sound effect the thing gives off. Maybe you should buy her a new doorbell. Or pay for a doorman. She could use one.

Time seems to stop, and you wait, uncharacteristically patient, for her top open. Hands that sound vaguely human scratch at the locks behind the door. The deadbolt. Then the turnstile. Then the sliding chain at last. The door opens, and she's standing there in a pink robe. Her hair is loose—almost passes for messy—and she looks quite different without cosmetics. But you're used to that. Heck…this is like a little reunion.

One chance to do this. One chance to make up for everything. Don't play innocent, don't play nice. Just hold out the damn roses.

"Lois," you say and don't hold back on the smile. "Hello."

* * *

_**Continued... **_


	6. Intersession: Change

**1938 Sullivan Street.**

**11:15 p.m.**

The elevator ride is interminably slow. And Lex Luthor's mind, as it always does in its futurist way, devises a complete and plausible direction for the conversation about to happen.

The first time he will have spoken to Lois, person to person, in months. Without platitudes. Without suits of armor, or killer robots, or Men of Steel. Away from intrigue and backstabbing. Away from the world.

The elevator ride is interminably slow. He wrings his hands tightly around a bundled bouquet of roses.

Luthor goes over the scenario in his head:

_She stands there and stares at you stupidly for a moment and forgets her manners. Offer her the flowers._

_She sidesteps and holds out a hand, directing you to the living room. It's a well appointed oak and burgundy affair. A plasma screen hangs from a dark wood panel in the eastern wall—Victorian scones with burning candles deck either side of the panel. The TV is showing Wolf Blitzer, muted._

_She asks you to have a seat while she makes for the kitchen and asks if you want anything._

_Head for the couch, a brown leather contraption that rather pulls you into it when you sit. You try to make up for the ungainly look of motion by making your spine rigid. Trying to look proper. Serious._

_She brings out two tumblers of water, half-filled. One she hands to you, the other she keeps and sets in a crystal coaster on the coffee table. She exchanges it for the Planet daily crossword, and pulls a green and red plaid blanket over her legs. It's a very grandmotherly look for her._

_"Lois?"_

_"Mm?"_

_"Can you put the newspaper down? I have something I'd like to discuss with you."_

_She looks at you. "…What?"_

_"Us."_

_"Us?"_

_"Yes. The way we were. Before all this happened. Before Superman. You remember, please tell me you do."_

_"I try not to, Lex. It's hard to forget when I have to see that building of yours blocking out the sun every damn morning."_

_"Point taken."_

_"Uh-huh. And what's your point? I can't remember the last time someone brought me roses out of the blue. Are you buying the Planet again? Because I can refer you straight to Perry if—"_

_"Lois, it's not about the Planet. It's about you."_

_That gets her attention. "Me?" she asks._

_"It's always been about you. Everything I've ever done—ever since I landed that prototype craft all those years ago and started building LexCorp. That was when you and I were…well, you know."_

_"Yes, I do. And you don't seem so up to discussing it for what it was."_

_"It was good. Wasn't it?"_

_"You're an idiot."_

_"Lois—"_

_"Do you even remember what you did?! We dated for less than a year, Lex. Then you started to get these ideas about your LexWing and your company. And you bought office space on the top floor of the Planet, and I barely saw you. A girlfriend is supposed to see the other half, Lex—it's a two-way street. You took up one half and your ego had the other and…"_

_"What?"_

_"No," she says and touches one temple, suppressing a headache. "No, I'm not getting into this. I'm not, and I won't. I'm not. You understand?"_

_"I understand I hurt you," you say. Surprising even yourself, you move to one knee and grab her hand by the fingertips. "It won't happen again. You have my word."_

_"No…I can't. You think one instance of niceness is making up for years of…of lies? You hurt people, Lex. You hurt businesses, you hurt Superman. You hurt me!"_

_You feel your expression souring at the mention of Superman's name. Yes, Superman. The great equalizer, whose arrival heralded the beginning of mankind's slope to mediocrity._

_Superman. The object of your hate._

_You'd lost Lois for reasons all your own and you've pined for her ever since. Superman arrived and threw everything into chaos. He stole her from you._

_He's a thief. A charlatan._

_And when he personally affronted you. When he threw you in prison. When he stole the love of your life…_

_You gave everything up to hate._

_Hating him. God, did you hate him._

_Still do._

_But Lois. The jewel of your eye._

_Even after everything you still love her, don't you? You never stopped, probably never will—even though she's married to that clod Kent. Yes, you loved her, and still do. And true love never dies. Not for a person. Not for a city._

The elevator lurches to a slow and cringing stop. The doors ding and slide open. Luthor steps out and stops in the middle of the highway. Behind him the doors close and the elevator proceeds to pick up its next victim.

He stops in the middle of the hallway and turns right. 1938. Even number, left side of the hallway.

He stops just short of knocking on the door; a hand formed into a loose fist with the knuckles extended curled into a fist as he weighed his options. He sighs deeply and lowers his hand. Turns for the elevator bank.

On the way out of the building, he tosses what would have been Lois' bouquet of roses in a garbage can with one swift motion. He stops just outside the building, and turns his head down to see a bum huddled over a heat grate in the middle of the sidewalk. He rummages in his jacket pocket and flings a C-note at the man before striding quickly back across the street to his limousine.

He throws the door open and sinks into the car quietly, pulling his houndstooth tightly over his chest. He glares out the window. The hobo was gone, probably for the nearest state Liquor Agency.

"Mercy."

"Sir."

"Home," he says.

En route, he sends a message to Teschmacher on his Blackberry that he'll be taking a small vacation for the next two days.

_It would've played exactly like that. You know that. She would've shut the door in your damn face. Nothing would have changed, least of all how a woman so efficiently removed from the past would care for you._

_You're letting this son of a bitch clown scare you. You're better than that. Far better than him._

_Lex Luthor._

_Man of Steel._

* * *

**_Continued... _**


	7. Noontime

_Two days passed._

_Luthor went back to work._

_Superman and Batman followed the radiation trail to SteelWorks._

_Robin decided to hide the gun from Batman._

**LexCorp.**

**Noon.**

The morning sky was omnipresence in the sky. No clouds to hide it, no jet trail streaking across the azure clearness. 97 stories up, the sunlight beamed through the glass menagerie of angled windows that served as a roof, heating the glass, and bathing the office—already a dull white luster—in natural light. This was the topmost portion of LexCorp's headquarters, sharing space with Luthor's own spacious office and his secretaries' station.

This was his private laboratory. A remarkably open space that bid anyone entrance, however uncomfortable it might be. The walls were drab white, the floor beige. A small marble bust of Einstein sat on a pedestal and stared out the window at the NewsTime building. At the far end of the lab, three lines of tables sat at perpendicular angles to the east wall. Each bore a different pet project: Synthetic kryptonite suspended over an iodine solution on one; kryptonite over the blue-hot flame of a Bunsen burner at another; at the third, a square cage with three rats and a shard of kryptonite dangling before them.

Dull white doors hissed and slid away from each other as Luthor entered, wearing his double-breasted lab jacket, grey trousers and Italian leather boots. He threw the clipboard on a centrally located lab table carelessly and went to the mice table.

"Good morning," he said to the quiet. A microprocessor in the ceiling activated itself by the sound of his voice and began recording. "Secure line."

He reached the mice table and leaned over the cage, observing the mice for three minutes. As he watched, he narrated.

"Subject number one is keeping to himself, almost huddled in one corner of the cage, drinking water compulsively every five seconds or so. Subject number two," Luthor said and paused, watching intently to see if the mouse was still alive. When he saw its tiny ribcage rise and fall, he continued: "Subject number two appears to be sleeping. Quickened pace of inspirations points to rapidly mutating physiology, perhaps even nascent chronic fatigue. Compare with subject number one, which displays severe dehydration." Luthor turned to the last mouse. "Subject three, meanwhile displays none of the aforementioned maladies. Instead…"

The third mouse was busying itself running inside the tiny wheel. Luthor cracked a smile and scoffed.

"Subject three appears to not be affected by the Kryptonite."

He turned abruptly and walked to his preparation table. "Recording off," he said. The microprocessor in the ceiling recognized the vocal pattern and switched itself off. Luthor wrote the results on a sheet of legal pad and affixed it to the clipboard. Then, he tucked his clipboard under one arm and strode out of the lab quickly.

He'd introduced the new Kryptonite synthesis only three days ago, and already the subjects were on the verge of lymphoma. Small rodent bodies and wildly different physiology notwithstanding, Kryptonite poisoning doesn't work that fast.

Luthor knew that much.

A simple majority of the mice had failed the test; the new synthesis was too effective.

If he was to use it in the field, Luthor would be just as likely to die as Superman would.

This could not be allowed.

* * *

**The Halldorf Hotel.**

**Noon.**

He'd slept in.

Tim Drake rolled over at the sound of the alarm clock going off at nine o'clock, swiping it with one lazy hand and knocking it off the nightstand. It worked, at any rate: the damn alarm shut off, and Tim dozed for three more hours.

It was the midday sun streaming through Venetian blinds, coupled with the chill wind he felt on his bare chest that woke him. His eyes rolled open and he stared at the ceiling for another five minutes before actually getting up.

He didn't even have that bad of a night. Nothing major, aside from a few averted muggings and one less drug-peddler in the Slum to worry about. Certainly no Jokers or gang wars to quell.

He rolled out of bed and sauntered slowly to the bathroom. Over a cold shower, he thought about how quiet Metropolis was, and figured the only reason someone like Luthor could give Superman so much trouble was because there were piles of nothing going on in this town.

"Must be nice," he said, and rinsed.

* * *

**SteelWorks.**

**Noon.**

John Henry Irons scratched his head.

"Why would they bring the plutonium with them?"

"Actually," the Man of Steel said, "we were wondering why our mystery man would head here."

"Well," Irons pried. "This isn't something we broadcast, y'know, but we do have…sizeable amounts of Kryptonite. LexCorp settled with us a few years back over copyright issues, believe that or not. They ended up giving us half of their stock."

Superman pursed his lips. "That wouldn't stop Lex from synthesizing it."

Batman brought the conversation back on track. "We believe," he said, "the Joker has a weapon of mass destruction in his possession, one he stole from LexCorp. Most likely it's a missile, though we cant be sure what kind. And we're not sure how Toyman knew about the theft either."

Irons' eyes narrowed. He stroked his goatee thoughtfully.

"What is it?" Superman asked.

"Nothing," Irons replied. "Just agreeing with you. Schott wouldn't know something like that, unless he was on the outside. You seem right on the money."

The Man of Steel cocked his head.

Batman looked at Superman, and entertained a thought.

"What happened to your Kryptonite stores, John Henry?" Batman said evenly.

Superman looked at the Dark Knight, then at Irons. For a moment in time, he panicked, however minutely.

"They're gone," Irons sighed. "Every last bit."

Superman's head shot up, suddenly attentive. "What?"

"And this wasn't the damn Newsboy Legion ripping me off or anything, mind you. This was a good robbery. They planned for it, and they didn't touch anything else but the Kryptonite."

Behind the star-lite lenses, Batman's eyes narrowed. "You think it was one of the usual suspects?"

"Yes," Irons said bluntly. "Staff came in the next morning and found something our robber baron left behind."

"What?" Superman asked.

"Walk with me," Irons said. Batman and Superman followed him to a smaller lab off the main hallway. Restrained to the far wall and bolted to the floor was a motionless refrigerator. The jury-rigged legs coming out of the bottom looked like a _Lost in Space_ costume rejection.

Superman scowled. Only one man could do this.

"Loomis."

* * *

**LexCorp.**

**7:00 p.m.**

Aside from the white glow of his laptop screen, depowered lampdisks at the front corners of Luthor's desk were the only things giving off light.

The windowed walls behind the desk haloed the darkness.

In the middle of typing a grant proposal, Luthor stopped.

Heard a tiny 'chink' on the glass window behind him.

He turned around to see the Boy Wonder standing there, precariously balanced on the three inches of ledge that existed. He was respooling the grapple and tucking it back into a pocket on that utility belt of his.

Luthor pulled a remote from his pocket and pressed a single red button. The glass panel directly in front of the Boy Wonder hissed and slid back on rollers.

Robin stepped into the office and tried to make it look suave. Tried to make it look Batman-esque. Cocked his head ever so slightly as the window slid back into place. His black cape draped around his shoulders and, in the darkness, made him look like a floating head.

"I see you got my message," Luthor smiled.

"How did you do it?"

"Have a seat," Luthor said. He rotated his seat around as Robin trailed a modest radius from the edge of the desk, finally stopping at the green leather chairs facing Luthor. "You must be tired."

"Not really."

"To be honest, I'm surprised you showed up. Why not your mentor. Or Superman?"

"They're busy."

"Looking for the Joker, are they?"

Robin's expression gave no hint.

"Well," Luthor said and leaned back, inspecting his fingernails. "They can keep looking. As for you—"

"What do you want?"

Luthor cocked his head. "You, Boy Wonder. For a very specific reason."

"Such as?"

"You know I enjoy my mind games. As a matter of fact, I enjoy them so much I even tried them on you, to varying degrees of success. I'm humble enough to admit you resisted better than most. For that I give you credit. But only just enough. You know why I sent you that gun?"

Robin froze. "What?"

"Lies don't become you, Boy Wonder—you knew it was me. Who else, eh?" Luthor smiled thinly, baring flawless white teeth. "Consider the gun my gift to you."

Robin threw his cape back and slammed one fist on the desk. This was Robin letting a fuse pop.

"**Enough with that**! God **damn** it! I came here because **you** know where the Joker is and you'll tell me because you think you **have** to! So **tell** me, or I'll break every goddamn bone in your **body** until you do! **Okay?!"**

One of Luthor's eyebrows arched. He rubbed his thumb across his fingers and inspected his nails quietly.

"Are you done?"

Robin's shoulders slumped.

"Sit," Luthor said. Robin complied, sinking into one of the leather chairs, hunched over lazily. "I'll say my part and then you can threaten me some more if you like, and that'll be the end of it."

Robin waved one hand. Luthor took it at license to continue.

"Why do you do it?" Luthor shut his laptop and clasped his hands attentively on the desk, locking his gaze on Robin. "Serve Batman, I mean. You seem like a smart kid—probably always were. What keeps you from baring all your sins? Taking off that ridiculous domino mask and coming out of the superhero closet?"

"I have my reasons."  
"Understood," Luthor quipped. "But would it really be so bad if you excised those skeletons? What has this admittedly remarkable secret brought you except what I suspect to be misery and pain? Is a secret identity really all it's cracked up to be if you sacrifice your life and everyone you love to…what? Save some addict from an oncoming truck?"

"Risks are part of the business."

"And of laboratory science," Luthor countered. "But you don't see me handling plutonium without the proper attire."

Robin brought his head up slowly to look Luthor in his burning green eyes.

"Plutonium?" he asked.

"An expression," Luthor said and waved his hand. "And you haven't answered my question."

Robin stood abruptly and hesitated for a moment. One of Luthor's eyebrows angled, silently questioning the Boy Wonder.

"We're not having this discussion," Robin said and pointed his finger at Luthor. "You sent me a gun. You threatened me. I want to know why."

"Batman's instilled some remarkable qualities in you," Luthor said evenly. "But the one he's conveniently neglected is relativism. And it is a virtue, I promise you, Boy Wonder. Only his absolutist mind doesn't think so."

Robin turned to leave. Before heaving one of the solid glass doors open, he stopped at the sound of Luthor's voice.

"You remember that sheet of paper I gave you? That answer? Consider it, Boy Wonder. Consider what would happen if you brought the Joker in on your own, and whose interests you'd really be serving."

Luthor watched him go. Watched the glass door close. Watched Robin board the elevator.

He leaned forward and dialed security. Told them to let the teenager dressed like a minstrel to pass unabated. Then he called Mercy.

"Yes, Lex?"

"Call the labs; tell them I'll be down shortly."

"Yes, Lex."

"And Mercy. Get to Loomis before Superman does, and bring him to me."

* * *

**_Continued... _**


	8. Nietszche

**Suicide Slum.**

**Oswald Loomis.**

Everything's ruined.

You should have never done this, Oswald. You stay away from Luthor for a goddamned good reason. You're not in his league and that's the way it should be. He's far out of yours. He operates on another plane of existence.

He's had Superman at his knees before. Closest you ever got was a boxing glove full of itching powder, okay?

Working with him was a mistake. Same as it was with the Joker. No briefcase full of money should have convinced you otherwise. Even if it helped pay the bills.

They're insane. And whatever anyone might say about you, you know the score. You're just a fellow with some revenge issues. Particularly large revenge issues, but you wouldn't do half of what this Joker has.

It was a mistake.

And it's coming for you.

**They're **coming for you.

"Mister Loomis," she says. You jump at the sound of Mercy's voice—you forgot she was there—and you grip the gun tightly. Sweat's pouring down your body; the yellow oxford is clingy against clammy skin. "We need to keep moving," she says, and leads you out the back door of the flophouse, through a dark and puddle-filled alley. At the far end, a silver Rolls Royce glistened in the orange glow of sodium street lamps.

You need to slow down, Oswald. Your heart is pounding furiously; it's trying to escape the inevitable.

The Rolls Royce gets closer.

Superman could float down in front of us any minute now. He could just land and backhand Mercy's head down the street and break every bone in your body. You'd be dead and you wouldn't even know it, and…and oh Jesus what's going on how did it get like this you're not good at this part of the job that's why he always caught your ass and he'll do it again you know it just get out just run like hell and fess up and look for asylum and--

"Get in." Her voice is calm enough and you're in just the position to obey. You duck down low and sneak in lest anyone see you. She follows in one smooth motion, shutting the door behind her. The Rolls Royce speeds away. In the distance, the LexCorp tower is glowing—every light in every office on every floor is on, bidding welcome.

Your heart is still trying to escape.

He could land in front of us at any moment.

* * *

**Tim Drake.**

**En route to the Halldorf Hotel.**

After leaving Luthor—literally strolling out the front doors while those ridiculous Team Luthor dragoons stood there watching him—he changed into civilian clothes in an alley off seventy-fifth.

He went back to the Halldorf and tried to get some sleep but he only heard Luthor in his head. Mocking him. He couldn't stand it. He went for a walk in his civvies. Stopped some thugs from ripping off a Radio Shack and managed to make them feel it by slamming a flat-panel television across one's face.

Tim kept walking and ended up on the seedier side of New Troy. The dark side of Centennial Park, where the adult theaters and the smut-peddlers go—and once he saw it, he was honestly surprised such things existed in a town like Metropolis.

That doesn't stop him. He's restless, and sufficiently adventurous.

And the two bikers across the street—the ones with equal parts muscle and fat, and necks buried somewhere in between—they're staring at him hatefully. Or amorously. He can't really tell.

He waits until the little white man comes up in the black box and tells him to cross the street. Slides his hands in his jacket pockets and raises his head slowly. Smiles thinly and narrows his eyes. Breathes deeply—it's a technique he long ago mastered from Shiva. Walk past the bikers, breathing through his nose and discretely taking in the bad vodka and the cheap cigars.

They're pigs. Slime. Probably on Luthor's payroll—they would seem the type—probably so deprived of everything that anything will do. They start trailing him, and he hears the murmurs. The building of courage.

This is the best Metropolis can offer? A couple of frustrated over the hill morons with nothing but time on their hands. It's almost sad.

He rounds a corner into another alley—this one a cul-de-sac with a wooden fence at one end too high to jump over—takes off the bomber jacket, folds it neatly and sets it on the ground next to him. When he turns around, the bruisers are waiting, three meters away. The fat one cracks his knuckles and shows gold teeth when he smiles. The other, slightly thinner one folds his arms over his chest.

Tim rolls the sleeves up on his Oxford. Let them watch, sure. Let the egos swell…

Before the fall.

"Gentlemen," he mocks and cocks his head. "This is pointless."

"Show you a good time, kiddo," the skinny one says. "Real good. You never had it like this before."

"No," Tim replies. "Neither have you."

The fat one laughs and slaps the skinny one on the chest. "Heh," he gurgles. "Mebbe we's got one'll play along."

The skinny one makes fists and tenses his whole body. "Maybe…"

"We'll show you fun, boyo," the fat one says and starts inching forward. "City of Tomorrow, yes indeedy."

"Please do," Tim says. He realizes the irony of manly bikers such as these corrupting a fetching youth like himself. Morons.

Slim pulls a switchblade.

"Fun," Tim says again. "Yeah, it will be." He breathes deep again. And remembers Shiva. The rest happens in slow motion.

His knee leaves the ground and slams into the skinny one's groin. Slim's eyes go wide and then flutter shut as Tim's kneecap shatters testicles and cracks the pubic symphisis. Tim grabs Slim by the temples and brings his head down, slamming Slim's forehead into the kneecap. Stronger bone structure. Instantly unconscious. Slim falls to the ground, rather like a ragdoll. Tim observes him for a moment, and then looks at the fat one. Wags two fingers quickly, beckoning him.

Fat makes the mistake of trying a sucker punch. Tim grabs his fist and somersaults over him, landing gracefully and kicking him squarely at the back of the knee. Fat falls to the ground; Tim's already pressing on his thigh and pulling the leg. It cracks with a wet snap, and Fat gives a schoolgirl's scream.

Tim stands and presses his foot against Fat's lumbar vertebrae.

"Hurts, doesn't it?"

"You little shit," Fat gasps. "Let me up."

"Sorry." Tim crouches and grabs Fat's ponytail. Heave sit up abruptly and shoves it back down into the pavement swiftly. "No deals," he says. The unconscious bodies don't reply.

Tim picks up his jacket, dusts it off with pretension, and walks away.

Dials the police from a payphone—it takes them twenty minutes to respond. Calls a cab and returns to the Halldorf.

It was disappointing. _But it served its purpose_, Tim tells himself. He remembers his Shiva training, and his Nietzsche. _Gaze into the abyss…and it looks into you. _

_You want to beat Luthor; you've got to at least think like him._

"Yeah," he said to no one in particular. "I know…"

* * *

**Five miles off the Metropolis coast.**

**LexCorp's Oceanographic Laboratory AC-83. **

The armor fits better than he remembers. But then, that's so long ago. Almost another life. Technologies have improved. Time was, the damn thing would just weigh you down and shoot childish looking missiles.

It's better than that now. A fully functioning interface with the user, courtesy of company nanotechnology breakthroughs, funneled to what the budget calls the Defense of Property Attainder.

Yes, the suit works. It will take care of everything. And it's just novel enough to still be the standard green and purple. Suitable colors, after all: green for money. Purple, for regalia. Two things which are ever on Luthor's mind.

The gauntlets are still a little clunky, but that's to be expected. The repulsors in the boots work well enough. The shields are operating at maximum. Hell, even in-suit climate controls are working well enough.

This is Lex Luthor in his armor. His power suit.

The corpus of a man, hidden under the veneer of superpowers. He is that which does not harm him. That which cannot harm him.

He is Super Man.

"Mercy," he says and cocks his head to one side. "Remote."

She's standing behind him to one side, and when he says her name she steps forward obediently and lays the sleek black remote control in the palm of his hand. He can't feel it for the armor. But he imagines he can.

Takes a deep breathe, and looks at the rocket before him. It's only slightly smaller than a Saturn V, and the years and money spent putting the myriad parts together could have bought Luthor a small nation. But this is better.

He eyes the remote amour sly, thinks about pressing the button, and forces himself not to.

He taps a section on his chestplate; the yellow central triad slides open, revealing an open space inside, and Luthor fits the remote neatly behind the plating. Pushes it closed, and turns around.

"Think of it, Mercy. A Kryptonite warhead. And when it reaches the proper altitude…"

For a moment, Luthor's heart swells. He straightens his posture as much as the armor allows and tracks his eyes up the body of the rocket, toward the nose and its deadly payload.

"That…that will kill him."

* * *

_**The Daily Planet.**_

"What are you thinking, Bruce?"

Batman cocks his head, almost flinches, at the name drop. Underneath the cowl, his brow furrows and he frowns.

"We missed Loomis," the Dark Knight says. "Which means Luthor got to him first. The trail's dried up."

Superman touches a finger to his chin. "Maybe…"

"What?"

"Hold on," the Man of Steel says and looks away. Ten blocks away, the LexCorp tower is shining in the night. Superman imagines for a moment that Luthor and he are having a stare down, separated by time and space and circumstance. "I'm scanning the building."

"I thought it was lead-shielded."

"Even he can't afford to panel the whole thing," Superman says evenly, and looks back to Batman. "Just the important parts. I can't see anything above street-level except office space and conference rooms."

"And below street-level?"

"Nothing. He's covered at least five blocks out."

Batman thinks on it for a moment. Touches a finger to his ear, opening a channel to Robin.

"Robin."

"Batman."

"Meet us at the _Planet_ as soon as you can."

"What's up?"

"We're going after Luthor."

"Um…" Robin trails off.

"What is it?" Batman asks and scowls.

Across the void of radio waves, Robin thought about the gun, and the address. "Nothing," he says. "I'll be there shortly."

Batman turns to Superman. "Luthor's not home," he says. "The lights are a distraction. He's long gone. So is Loomis...maybe even Joker."

The Man of Steel sighs and frowns. _How the hell does he know these things?_

* * *

**_Continued... _**


	9. Moonraker

**Five miles off the coast.**

**LexCorp's Oceanographic Laboratory AC-23. **

He doesn't feel the remote, for the bulky purple gauntlet covering his hand.

His eyes are centered on it. They rise slowly to stare at the missile before him—a rather petite Saturn V knockoff. A wall ten feet thick, a window made of ten compressed panels of Plexiglas, separate Luthor and Mercy from the launchpad.

Luthor eyes the remote once more. And as his thumb hovers over the release button, he thinks of Lois.

_The fallout might just kill her._

He presses the button.

_Are you happy now, Man of Steel?  
_

* * *

**LexCorp.**

It took three hours, and he was only trying to get up two flights of stairs, but he finally got out. Not that his legs were broken or anything—merely asleep, and he needed the challenge of climbing out from Luthor's nose in plain sight—but he rather enjoyed the three hours. It gave him time to think of a plan. A really good one. With bells and whistles and screams.

He was nearly unrecognizable; his clothes tattered and soaked with blood, down to the breast line of his jacket. It rather looked he vomited the red stuff all over himself. In any event, he looked sufficiently mauled, like some madman had just beaten the hell out of him.

The illusion allowed him to kill fourteen Team Luthor guards. With one of their security pass cards, he found his way to the helipad. With one of their handy-dandy plasma-energy-riflemotrons, he commandeered Luthor's private chopper.

He fitted the headphones around his ears and yelled into the mouthpiece, doing his best Jerry Reid.

"Roger Molotov, we got a cocktail here primed to throw, repeat primed to throw, come back."

A tinny and frankly feminine voice grumbled at him from the other end: "who is this?"

"Just a friend," he chortled. The blades whirred to life, and a moment later the chopper lurched upward into the night. "By the way, and this is just between me and thee, Tubsy-Ubsy, but I don't suppose you could tell me where the big guy is tonight?"

"What? Who the hell is this?"

"Luthor, you fantastic dope," he vamped. "Getting a hair cut, asking the bearded lady for a date—what? Think, man!"

"Who the hell is this?! What's your operating number?"

The Joker rolled his eyes, ripped the headset off and threw it behind him. "Boring conversation anyway."

He pulled the stick right sharply, and the chopper lurched toward the open ocean. _Right? Starboard? That's really more of a nautical thing, though. Hehehe, nautical. Naughty cal. Words are funny._

He was momentarily blinded by a brightness off to the…_aw hell_, he thought, _port bow_. He let the chopper rest at a fixed altitude, leaned back in his seat and stared directly ahead.

An oil rig far out in the ocean had just launched something. Joker's eyes tracked the smoke trail up into the sky, and rested on a bright spot cruising below the clouds: a missile, arcing high in the sky.

Heading for Metropolis.

He stroked his chin, and piloted the chopper toward the rig.

* * *

**LexCorp Oceanographic Laboratory AC-23.**

"I must admit, Mercy, I'm confounded as to what we'll call this. When it's over the press is going to want an explanation and a tacky buzzword. Every tragedy these days has to have its sensationalism, don't you find? I don't suppose we can call it a Supermissile, can we? He has the trademark on that."

Luthor looked over at Mercy. They shared thin smiles, as each knew what the other was talking about.

"Yes," Luthor said, looking back out at the ocean and the glittering skyline. "Something snappy."

He heard muffled yelps and rustling somewhere behind him. Signs of a brief struggle. He turned away from the window slowly just in time for Mercy's unconscious body to land at his feet. Her face seemed frozen: lips downturned, eyes closed tightly, forehead furrowed. He looked up, straight ahead, into the darkness of the lab.

"What do you think, Dark Knight? A name for my little science project. I was thinking Moonraker."

"Tasteful," a voice said from the darkness. "What's next, murder on the Orient Express?"

Luthor scoffed, privately insulted. "How much Ian Fleming can we explore, Dark Knight? Why don't you step out from those shadows and take a look at yourself. You're a ridiculous man, but only slightly. How in the world does someone like The Joker manage to take you seriously?"

Batman did so, stepping out slowly, and allowing his cape to flutter behind, giving him a dark kind of majesty.

"It's over, Lex."

Luthor scowled. His eyes burned hatred.

"Over?" he said and narrowed his eyes. "Do you know who I am?"

"Just as ridiculous as I am," Batman said and pointed behind Luthor. When the Metropolis mogul turned around, Superman hovered before him: a foot off the floor, arms folded confidently over his chest, eyes staring directly at Luthor. "Maybe even more than him."

Luthor turned and looked at Batman again, frowning sharply.

"You overplayed your hand, Lex," Batman said. "The clues lined up all too well. You used a middle-man—Oswald Loomis—to steal the Kryptonite from SteelWorks so you'd remain safely anonymous. Then you heard the Joker was in town, fresh off a prison break, and you figured you could use him for something. But you never really settled on any one thing, so you beat him and left him for dead. It was old-hat. Even by your standards."

Luthor's eyes narrowed. "You know, your protégé has much more respect."

The Boy Wonder realized the jig was up, and dropped to the floor in a low crouch. As he stood, the grapple line respooled itself on his belt buckle.

"You're not a talker, Dark Knight. The Boy Wonder there knows something neither of you does. And my little Moonraker has about two minutes left before it reaches critical altitude."

Batman gritted his teeth and made his hands into fists.

Luthor raised an eyebrow. "Robin," he said. "Your answer."

Robin looked in his hand, and slowly opened his palm to see the crumpled sheet of legal pad. He smoothed it out. And behind the Star-lite lenses, Tim Drake rolled his eyes dreadfully. _This can't be good._

"What are you doing with this missile, Lex?" the Man of Steel asked. He stood an inch from Luthor and tapped his index finger against the armor's chestplate. "Trying to blow up the CNN satellite or something just as stupid?"

Luthor smiled; a befuddled and wide grin. "How stupid can you be, Alien?" He cocked his head half a degree. "Robin. Read the note."

Batman stepped forward. "Luthor—"

Luthor shot around, pivoting on his heels and raising his arm to a perfect parallel.

The energy blast was brilliant blue-white, and it struck the Dark Knight square in the chest. He stumbled a few steps backward, staring at his own smoldering chest and not comprehending. Then he fell to the ground.

The whole affair took less than two seconds.

Luthor turned back to Superman, arm still held parallel to the floor.

"Watch it, alien. He got it easy. The next blast will be concentrated Kryptonite. And don't think about burning through this suit to get to my power source. This armor, Kryptonian…is a lead alloy."

Superman lifted a foot off the ground. He looked over Luthor's shoulder; Robin was already helping Batman to one knee. Superman formed his hands into fists, his knuckles cracked.

"Robin," Luthor said, still staring at the Man of Steel. "Read it."

"Please," the Boy Wonder pleaded. For a moment he marveled at his own emotional regression. "Just…don't do this."

"**Read** the **note**!" Luthor's voice was steely determination. As if he was issuing an ultimatum: read it or Superman dies.

Robin sighed, his shoulders slumped. He looked at the note, and started reading dismally.

"A bright light over Centennial Park. Stop it or it stops you."

Luthor narrowed his eyes and turned to Superman.

"Now," he said behind gritted teeth. "Fly."

Superman glanced at the Boy Wonder. Back at Luthor. A moment later, he was a blue streak heading into the sky.

Robin launched himself at Luthor, and instead found himself blocking Mercy's raw aggression.

* * *

On the other side of the laboratory-oil rig, Lex Luthor's private helicopter lowered to the helipad. Joker stepped out, carrying a revolver in one hand and a pilfered Team Luthor energy blaster in the other.

* * *

Three miles above Metropolis…the Man of Steel squinted. The missile was coming into range of heat vision. 

In the laboratory, Robin was jumping around Luthor, evading energy blasts with gusto while Batman opened a channel to Superman. "Get away from the missile, Clark!"

"It'll destroy the city!"

"It's Kryptonite! It'll kill you!"

For a millisecond, everything made sense.

A green flash exploded out of the rocket's nose and stunned the Man of Steel. His face felt hot for a moment as the shock washed over him. He felt himself go slack, his arms and legs dangling numb at his sides. He felt sharp pangs in his hands and his neck and face. The deadly cold of irradiated Kryptonite already breaking down his cellular structures.

As he fell, he began to tumble. The Earth was rushing to meet him.

Then…darkness.

* * *

_** Continued... **_


	10. Assault

**Five miles off the Metropolis coast.**

**LexCorp's Oceanographic Laboratory AC-83. **

It's been twenty seconds since Superman launched himself into inner space in a profoundly stupid act of heroism.

Mercy Graves has already pummeled me—sigh—mercilessly, batting me around like some cheap toy. As she lands a humdrum fist in my solar plexus—a move that brings pain I've long since been able to tune out—I wonder if she treats all her would-be targets this recklessly.

Truthfully? It's like I don't even have her full attention.

She's just…batting wildly.

No discipline, it seems. I would've expected more of her cruel master.

I manage to eek her into a chokehold, tossing that dreadful chauffeur's hat off her head to get a better hold. She grunts and lets out a few wet choking sounds before kicking one leg up. The action, to her credit, catches me sufficiently offguard—so much so that my hold loosens and she slides out.

She distance herself, backing away a foot or three, and strikes a cockamamie boxer's pose—legs shoulder-width apart, arms in tightly held fists at eye-level. Her frankly mannish face gives a frankly mannish scowl. The bun that was her tightly coiled hair is coming loose, and if I didn't know any better Id' say she just woke up.

Her face is bright red. From the blood rush or the anger.

Maybe both.

Before she tries to slide into home base—do a paltry leg sweep and take me down—I wonder if she's just plain crazy.

She tries the leg sweep, and I jam my bo staff into the soft tissue on her outer calf. She grunts and spins up into a crouch. I pull off a cheap Darth Maul imitation and slide the bo staff across my shoulders. She tries to move, I'll just slam the damn thing across her face.

The Star-lite lenses are good, insofar as she can't see my pupils. She can't see me looking ever so slightly beyond her shoulder, to Lex and Batman having a good old fashioned showdown. Reminds me of the old Smokin' Joe Frazier fights.

She launches herself at me, and it almost happens in slow motion. She's rather like a rabid dog.

I sidestep the oncoming left hook and whirl the bo staff around, striking her across the lumbar. It's lightweight enough that she'll feel a distracting sting.

She turns around and we lock gazes.

I drop the bo staff, feeling adventurous. Hold one hand out in a beckon.

Remember the abyss, Tim. It's gazing into you.

"Let's go."

She comes at me again. I wait for it, hoping for a millisecond that she'll just keel over.

* * *

**Lex Luthor and Batman.**

It's been just over ten years since I returned to Gotham, from a trek across the world. A trek that taught me how to turn criminals into cowards. How to avenge and not be vengeful. How to honor the lives of the people that mattered most to me.

And as Luthor and I trade blows like inveterate pugilists, all I can think of are those two people. Who did more for me in eight years of my life than I did for them. Who have defined my life, my every deed, up until this point.

This is how I feel most of the time. That every night is the most important night yet. Because I'm still fighting for them.

Fighting men like Luthor.

He is Clark's enemy first and foremost. A burden Clark is willing to bear. But in many ways, Luthor is more dangerous than even the Joker.

He has the means, and the knowledge, and the absolute cunning to do more damage than the Joker can even dream of. Luthor's fingers spread over anything he pleases. This is his evil.

This was always his problem.

I keep up the barrage on his armor's chest plate, finally breaking through like cracking the shell on a hard candy. He gives me a bewildered look, like he can't believe someone without superpowers could have done that.

With a free hand, I tap my forehead.

"Lex," I say and allow a smallest of small smiles. "A page from your own book. We carry the most powerful weapon in the world on top of our necks."

Before I jam a mini-explosive—in the shape of a batarangs—in his chestplate crater, I haul him to his feet.

"You can't do this, Batman! You're no better than he is!"

I hit him with a solid right hook. One of Richard Dragon's cruder lessons.

"Wrong," I say, as his head slacks. "I can."

I let him go. A moment later he struggles to get to one knee and raises his hand, preparing another energy blast. I can hear the servos warming up, the circuitry in his chest sparking and popping. A batarang slides into my hand.

I back away from him.

"What are you—"

He looks at the Batarang in my hand—I make it visible—and then down at the hole in his armor.

Then the explosive in the chest cavity blows.

The smoking hulk falls back to the ground.

As I stand over him and check his pulse and a few other vitals, his eyes flutter open momentarily.

"You," he mutters. "You…bastard …"

* * *

_** Continued...**_


	11. Ars Gratia Artis

**Five miles off the Metropolis coast.**

**LexCorp's Oceanographic Laboratory AC-83. **

**Superman.**

**Falling.**

_The kryptonite missile did well. As well as Luthor wanted it to. But his samples—the Kryptonite he synthesized and tempted Bruce Wayne with—their shelf-life was up._

_Stupid._

_Luthor used to be so successful at his sciences. So useful._

_What changed?_

_Why did his synthetic Kryptonite isotopes fail?_

So you're falling, Superman. But not to your death. Not because of Lex Luthor's criminal genius. Because of an empirical blunder.

You think of Lois.

You know you'll survive this fall. That the only reason your body is paralysed is because Lex Luthor and his goddamn missile stunned you into the next century. That you'll probably slam into the ocean with a couple hundred miles of force behind you. And then you'll regain your sense of self.

It's all so familiar. You'd sigh if you could. Roll your eyes if you could.

Luthor's lost his flair.

Your body rolls over so our numb face stares at the ocean.

Coming up quickly to meet you.

It's all so familiar.

You wonder if you'll even flinch.

And you really wish you could move your arms.

* * *

**Batman.**

**Searching.**

He'd left Luthor's unconscious hulk propped up against a wall in the center lab. Gone outside to secure the perimeter. It was a fairly standard sweep. Perhaps even predictable. Predictable was bad. Predictable meant you could stop caring.

That just couldn't happen.

He rounded a corner and his eyes rolled around ceaselessly in their sockets. Searching for anything. Recording it all and logging it away in his file cabinet of a brain.

Three meters ahead his eyes came across the figure strolling towards him in a garish purple tuxedo. A human eyebrow under the cowl raised an eyebrow and slid slowly next to the wall, just out of range of one of the gantry-way sodium-filaments.

The Joker kept on his slow gait down the gantry. He looked around idly, like an inspector, or a bored child in the grocery store. Team Luthor standard issue plasma rifle angled on one shoulder—the DNA-verify kind with a thumbprint on the butt so no one but the certified user could fire the damn thing.

The eyebrow came up again.

He thinks he's clever. They both do.

Joker took to whistling 'Heart and Soul'. At the end of the first stanza, Batman cleared his throat. The obvious notice-me kind of throat clearing.

Joker stopped and his posture stiffened. He looked up, straight ahead.

Batman stepped out of the shadows.

"So," the white face said and the lips thinned into a grin. "I come all the way up the coast for a little vacation and you follow me. People will say we're in love." And he winked.

"I came here looking for you," Batman said and stepped under the glow of the sodium-filament so it bathed him in an orange halo. "You know how this ends."

"Sure," Joker said and gave a patronizing frown. "We get into fisty-cuffs and then you haul me all the way back home. Or I run away into the path of certain death, only to resurface in about five weeks, baffling all of you, to pull another hare-brained scheme from my is there a third route?"

"The easy way. The one way you won't go for."

Joker's eyes narrowed and one half of his mouth smiled. He let out a noise that was low-leveled and doubtful. Weighing his options, not caring which one he took really. All roads lead to Arkham and all that.

"Try me," he said after a moment.

"You throw the Team Luthor rifle overboard, relinquish the revolver sticking out of your vest pocket. And you come back to Gotham with me."

"I like my way better."

"I came here looking for you," Batman repeated. "I found greater besides. Right now, I have to go find Superman and put Luthor in jail."

Joker's face changed. "Luthor, eh?"

"Yes." Batman's chiseled frown stayed. "What did he do to you? What did you give him?"

"Nothing," Joker said, and threw up an empty-hand in the innocent offertory. "He was too busy rippin' off Loomis and, uh, whatshisface, the Molasses fellow at SteelWorks, yeah him. Too busy dealing with them to deal with me. I mean, he gave me a once over or two, which as you can see explains the blood stains on my Prom Night get-up here. But we weren't—" Joker's eyes lolled around for an instant "—in cahoots. Isn't that how it goes these days? All these morons gotta work together?"

Batman's eyes narrowed behind the Star-lite lenses.

"I believe you," he said. "Put down your guns and get back to Gotham where you belong."

Joker smiled. "Ah, you know me so well, I'm so thrilled!"

"Maybe so," Batman said and got in Joker's face. "This won't happen again. You get a head-start."

Joker cocked an eye.

"I don't have the time to deal with you. Take Luthor's helicopter and get out of this town. Tonight."

Then Batman turned. His cape swept out in a magisterial flourish behind him, and he was gone.

"I see how it is!" Joker yelled after the departing shadow. "Too good for me?! Next week, I'm gonna crap double for you!"

A tinny beeping in Batman's earpiece. He and touched one finger to the earpiece to activate the line.

"What?" he asked.

"I've taken care of Mercy," Robin said. "But Luthor's gone. I couldn't get to him in time. Like, teleported out of here. He ditched what was left of his armor, if that means anything."

"Damn it."

"What is it?" Robin asked.

Batman pulled open a compartment on his belt—a slim palmtop broadband interface, too small and too simple to be considered a computer. Programmed with slave commands to the jet, the car and the sub. He selected the slave command prompt for the jet—in waiting just off Miller Harbor.

"I've just sent the sub for you," Batman said and pocketed the broadband interface. "It'll be here in two minutes. Call Turpin, tell him to get the Major Crimes Unit out here for Mercy." A moment of hesitation. "And if you see a LexCorp helicopter taking off, put a tracer on it."

"Got it," the Boy Wonder said. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going after Luthor," Batman replied. By now, he'd found his way to an observation platform on the northwest corner of the rig. "Be ready for my signal. Batman out."

He tapped his ear twice after that, once to disconnect the line to Robin. Another to open a line to the JLA Watchtower on the Moon.

"J'onn, this is Batman at the LexCorp Research Platform off of Hell's Gate. I need an immediate transport to the Flatiron waterfront, priority level Alpha. Luthor has escaped."

"Understood," the cold and distant voice replied. "Committing now. Standby."

Blue rings of energy surrounded the Dark Knight, and disappeared as promptly.

He materialized next to a dumpster. He looked around for a moment and made his way out of the alley.

It was Chinatown. He was in Chinatown.

He looked around again. A terrified couple at the Wok bar across the way stared at him, and he returned the glare—as alien as anything. Like he was seeing people for the first time.

He made his way to the end of the street.

Swanderson. He was on Swanderson.

The LexCorp Tower was a block north. Even in the dead of the cloudy night, the building still blocked out the sky.

He stopped in the middle of the boulevard and waited. Closed his eyes.

_If I were Lex Luthor…_

A block north, he heard it. An engine revving to life a couple of alleys away. He saw the headlights first. Then the body lurched forward and spun out as it tore out fot eh alley.

A car too rich to be anything but Luthor's.

He ran for it.

The car was old. Packard by the looks of it. Boattail speedster, with the ornate hubcaps and the bodywork on the boot coming to a round v-shape and spare tire in the fender-mould near the front right tire. The Packard in its old age was having trouble getting to second gear.

His eyes narrowed under the Star-lite lenses. Jaw clenched. Legs burning.

The cabriolet top was down and he could see Luthor, or his head, shining in the reflection of the streetlamps. The driver was wearing a chaffeur's captain-hat. Probably Hope Taya, the lesser of two evils.

He pulled a grapple from his belt and shot, aiming for the boot-anchored spare tire. The grapple hit true, and gave Luthor away. The billionaire shot up and around, looking wild-eyed at the Batman being dragged along the street behind him.

He let out an exasperated sigh and yelled back at Hope, "Faster!"

When Luthor looked back, Batman was climbing up the rope, connected to the grapple. The Metropolis Mogul glanced at the spare and the grapple-hook sunk firmly into the tire. No way to lose the thing without stopping fully.

Screw it, he thought.

Luthor had been wearing what he called a utility suit underneath the armor: green jodhpurs and a purple waistcoat with a close fitting neck, not unlike a US Marine uniform, except Luthor's came to a point at his Adam's Apple and flourished out behind that into what Mercy had called a Dracula collar. The uniform and the accompanying gloves, which were green for aesthetic purposes alone, was a Nomex-Kevlar bi-weave, meant to withstand the wear and tear of fisticuffs.

He was glad to finally get the chance to test the thing.

So Luthor watched at Batman climbed his way improbably up the rope. When the Dark Knight got to the rear fender securely, his boots planted themselves there and he hugged the spare tire for a moment before looking up.

Luthor scowled and laid a right hook across the Dark Knight. The car lurched a bit and he yelled to Hope, "Keep driving!"

Batman held on to the spare's latticework hubcab, barely, and Luthor hauled him back up again. Another right hook. Batman slacked. Luthor brought him back close. Another right hook.

"And you thought you could beat me, Dark Knight? Who do you think you are?!" Another right hook.

Luthor shook out his hand and gave it a dirty look for the pain he felt limited by feeling.

Batman got in a lame judo chop on Luthor, striking a nerve line running up the side of his neck. The chop got Luthor to release his grip, and gave Batman a better footing. He got up further on the car's boot, one leg in a crouch on the folded cabriolet-cover, the other extended straight into the back seat for support. Luthor maneuvered himself similarly, and the blows started their exchange again.

There was no time for martial flair to Batman's moves. He couldn't bring the artfulness of Shiva to bear. He just had to be quick and brutal—Richard Dragon's province.

Problem was, Luthor was taking it. Batman landed some blows to Luthor's midsection—Luthor kept mainly to Batman's head, probably figuring blunt trauma would end things quickly. The billionaire bowled over for a moment and Batman relented.

Kept a loose hand on Luthor's shoulder.

Luthor made a gurgling sound and then coughed up blood on the backseat and the cabriolet-cover. Quickly he looked up and sucker-punched Batman.

The wind left the Dark Knight and he bent over backwards. His legs tightened over the rim of the rear door: the action was the only thing that kept him in the car. He stared at the road ahead upside-down, and Luthor hauled him back in the car a moment later.

Another round of blows, more head trauma. Batman was sure he'd broken at east three of Luthor's ribs by now.

Luthor had him pinned in the back seat, and barely the Dark Knight managed to free a leg and jam his heel straight into Luthor's forehead. The kick stunned him. Batman jammed his leg again, this time into Luthor's load-bearing knee.

Luthor cried out in anguish and fell back in the seat, to the driver's side clutching his blown knee. Batman propped himself up on the passenger's seat and leaned forward to throttle Luthor.

"You're under arrest."

Luthor's nose was leaking blood profusely and he had a dirt smear across his temple and forehead from one of Batman's boots striking him. He sucked snot, or maybe blood, through his sinuses and back down his throat. One of his eyes was red. Probably a burst vessel. When he spoke his jaw barely moved. Probably it was fractured, too. The Dark Knight couldn't tell.

"Really, Batman? Arrest me. See what happens."

Batman grabbed Luthor by the Dracula collar and pushed him back, jamming his spine right into the rear-door railing. Luthor winced.

"You're a criminal," Batman said. "I've put rapists and meth-dealers in wheelchairs, Lex, imagine what I can do to you."

Luthor spit blood on the Dark Knight.

The next move happened in a flash. Batman tightened his grip on Luthor and threw the Metropolis Mogul over his shoulder.

Luthor flew past the front seat. Through the front windscreen and on to the hood of the Packard. It distracted Hope enough that the car swerved and almost overturned. Luthor grasped vainly for purchase and found it barely by wrapping broken fingers around the front right wheel-well; his other hand grasped the hood ornament weakly. He looked behind him as much as he could.

Batman was standing, looking triumphant in the front seat, staring Luthor down.

Hope was still driving but cowering away from the Dark Knight.

Luthor drew a deep breath against aching and snapped ribs. And scowled again.

He right himself on the hood and jammed his knee into Batman's shin; the Dark Knight fell away into the backseat, and the passenger's front seat snapped under the weight.

Luthor flashed Hope a sideways-thumb, and she hooked a left at the next street.

Luthor ambled lazily to the cab and threw himself on a compromised Batman.

He pinned the Dark Knight down by crouching right on him, jamming his knees into Batman's shoulders and keeping them there.

Then the blows were animalistic.

Like a kid beating up his own bully.

Like a predator tearing into infinitely weaker prey.

Except Batman was no fool.

This was kid's play indeed.

The Dark Knight separated the immediacy of the situation from the purpose of it. In his mind, he lamented that Luthor was not made of stronger stuff.

Lamented that even the Joker wouldn't have lost it by now.

He waited till Luthor's animalistic blows came to an end—when Luthor would have to cease and take a breath.

Luthor did, not long after Batman's estimation that he would, and then the Metropolis Mogul spoke.

"This is what you came to my city for? A couple of half-baked detections, half-truths, and a fist fight to the death with Superman's greatest enemy?"

The car kept going.

Batman coughed up some blood and with one hand clutched a snapped rib or two. His head was pounding. "Actually," he said weakly. "Yes."

Then he brought his knee up into Luthor's crotch. Luthor cried out again and punched Batman, as if the two were a shared move. He stood when he was sure Batman was stunned enogh, his legs supporting him at half-capacity. He fumbled for the holster at his waist, flipped it open and aimed the gun, shaking all the while, at the Dark Knight's forehead.

"LEX!"

He looked up, to his right—a couple hundred feet behind the Packard, where he heard the voice coming from.

No. No no no no no.

_NO!!_

Luthor turned the gun on the figure tooling up at him and fired off three rounds.

Then Superman was upon him. And the world became slow-motion…

The Man of Steel wrenching the gun from Luthor's hands and crunching it into a popcorn hull in his own. Pulling Luthor out of the car by the collar of his stupid purple uniform and hauling him a hundred feet in the air. Spinning Luthor around to disorient him, enough to make Luthor vomit in every direction. Setting Luthor down, finally, in the middle of the street.

Dazed. Confused.

He regained his sense in what he felt was a remarkably brief amount of time. A couple yards ahead, the Packard was a trash-heap, stopped dead in the middle of the road. He didn't see Hope anywhere.

No Batman, either.

The Metropolis Mogul was a wreck. His uniform was in pieces; the pieces that still remained were covered in blood, either his own or Batman's. Blood streamed from his nose down his face and chin. The dirt mark on his forehead was surrounded by a thousand smaller gashes from Batman tossing him through the windscreen. He sat slack. It hurt to breath. Damn broken ribs.

The avenue was dead for blocks around and Luthor cursed that.

No one to see his mishandling at the Alien's hands.

He looked up. Sucked more snot and blood back down into his throat.

Superman standing over him, cape fluttering in the night breeze. Arms folded over the gilded diamond letter on his chest.

"Why, Lex?"

He gave a low chortle, coated in hate and his own blood and wiped his nose with the tattered remains of a glove covering his hand. "Why do you ask me stupid questions, Superman?"

"Why were your isotopes duds?"

Luthor sighed. "God damn it…"

"Lex."

"Oh you," Luthor said and rubbed his temples. "You…how fortunate that you survived."

"Not quite so fortunate actually," the Man of Steel said. "Tell me why your missile failed."

"You can't just get synthetic Kryptonite from nowhere, Man of Steel." Luthor hacked and coughed up another gob of blood. "It's a problem with the isotopes. We could never replicate the precise radioactive signature without some fraction of the original. Same problem I had with Bizarro all those years ago—we needed part of the host material. At a molecular level."

"Lex…"

Luthor sighed and a stream of blood came out at the corner of his mouth. "That goddamn missile failed," he said weakly, "because the Joker has no concept of a quality weapon. And because I didn't want to kill Lois Lane. There." Luthor rubbed the dirt and grime and blood from his face, only smearing it more, and sighed again. "Your greatest enemy sabotaged his own missile because he's still torchbearing the love of his life. Happy now, Superman?"

Superman's jaw slacked an imperceptible millimeter.

Despite everything…Superman knew the truth.

The only person that loved Lois more than Clark Kent did...was Lex Luthor.

"Now," the Metropolis mogul hacked again, "is there anything else, before I bleed out completely?"

Luthor and Superman both looked down the street. An ambulance was coming.

Superman looked back at Luthor, and hauled him to his feet.

The ambulance came to a stop a few yards away. The EMTs were already running over.

Superman looked Luthor straight in the eyes.

"Lex."

"What?" Luthor said laboriously.

"That was very difficult for you to admit. About Lois. Wasn't it?"

Luthor rolled his eyes and threw his arm around one of the EMT's shoulders as they helped him limp to the back of the ambulance. "Of course not," Luthor said.

The ambulance left.

The street was dead again.

Superman stood there for a long time, staring down the street.

He thought about Lois.

Then Batman was out of the shadows, at Superman's side With Robin.

"Clark?" Batman said in that characteristic bass of his.

Superman shook Luthor's admission away and turned to the Dark Knight. "Thank you." To Robin: "and thank you. For saving me."

"Hey no problem," the Boy Wonder said. "It's what I do."

"What we do," the Dark Knight corrected.

Superman had to smile at that. "And what about the Joker?"

"On his way back to Gotham, where he belongs," Batman said.

"You let him go, didn't you?" Superman asked and felt it was fair enough.

Batman waited a moment. "It was my call to make. And we had to save you, Clark. That was the mission."

A moment. "And I appreciate it. Batman."

And then they shook hands. As weirdly and mechanically as ever.

* * *

That night, Clark Kent returned home and found his wife, still awake, on the Davenport: doing battle with the _Times_ crossword, and the TV muted on QVC. She rose and met him in a deep embrace. He kissed her once, longingly, and said, "I love you." Lois Lane smiled back, the smile that tempted the Prince of Troy, the smile of goddesses. And that was enough for Kal-el of Krypton.

Lex Luthor spent the night in Metropolis Presbyterian Hospital, staring out the window at his own building in the distance. Missing Lois.

The Joker dumped the LexCorp chopper on the bluff out front of Arkham Asylum, made off with some fishing rods from the Bass Pro Shops on Twentieth Street, and went to see if the guppies were biting in the Finger River.

Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake made it back to the Cave by 3 am, but stayed out for the rest of the night anyway.

As they descended onto a would-be date rape outside the Knights Stadium, Tim Drake had to smile. Not because these punks were about to get schooled. Not even because they were about to save this girl's life. But because Tim Drake wanted to smile. _Ars gratia artis._

Because saving this girl's life and stopping these neanderthals was the right thing to do.

Because Luthor and the Joker would never understand that.

And because Tim Drake could.

* * *

**_The End..._**


End file.
